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One of the first major blogging events we’ve done on Tor.com was for steampunk, and every autumn with the turning of the leaves, the H.M.S. Stubbington gets its engines stoked for another bout of gears, cogs, and 19th-century know-how. Now, Year Four into this brass madness, the question comes to mind: “Why does steampunk still matter?”

James Schafer, the co-owner of the Steampunk on Facebook page, sent that missive to me and several other steampunk tinkerers, academics, costumers, and event planners several months back, and its been on my mind ever since. Has our love for dirigibles gotten our heads too far into the clouds? Are we wandering, directionless, befuddled about what had brought us here? Are steampunks only good for quirky cameo appearances on reality TV or at the beginning of sitcoms about financially-challenged young women?

Everyone had their own answers to Schafer’s question, and here’s the best one I’ve come up with:

“Steampunk matters because it’s a verb now (or, always has been).”

More than just an aesthetic or a subgenre, it is a movement, with the emphasis on “move.” People do steampunk: whether writing it, drawing it, performing it, building it, or dreaming it.

So for Steampunk Week, we’re looking at what steampunk does that makes it relevant to the science fiction/fantasy community – and the greater world outside it. You’ll get bits of politics, art, literature, music, history, culture, and everything in between.*